git-cherry - Find commits yet to be applied to upstream
git cherry [-v] [<upstream> [<head> [<limit>]]]Determine whether there are commits in <head>..<upstream> that are equivalent to those in the range <limit>..<head>.
The equivalence test is based on the diff, after removing whitespace and line numbers. git-cherry therefore detects when commits have been "copied" by means of git-cherry-pick(1), git-am(1) or git-rebase(1).
Outputs the SHA1 of every commit in <limit>..<head>, prefixed with - for commits that have an equivalent in <upstream>, and + for commits that do not.
-v
Show the commit subjects next to the SHA1s.
<upstream>
Upstream branch to search for equivalent commits. Defaults to the upstream branch of HEAD.
<head>
Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
<limit>
Do not report commits up to (and including) limit.
git-cherry is frequently used in patch-based workflows (see gitworkflows(7)) to determine if a series of patches has been applied by the upstream maintainer. In such a workflow you might create and send a topic branch like this:
$ git checkout -b topic origin/master # work and create some commits $ git format-patch origin/master $ git send-email ... 00*
Later, you can see whether your changes have been applied by saying (still on topic):
$ git fetch # update your notion of origin/master $ git cherry -v
In a situation where topic consisted of three commits, and the maintainer applied two of them, the situation might look like:
$ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic * 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit [... snip some other commits ...] * cccc111 cherry-pick of C * aaaa111 cherry-pick of A [... snip a lot more that has happened ...] | * cccc000 (topic) commit C | * bbbb000 commit B | * aaaa000 commit A |/ o 1234567 branch point
In such cases, git-cherry shows a concise summary of what has yet to be applied:
$ git cherry origin/master topic - cccc000... commit C + bbbb000... commit B - aaaa000... commit A
Here, we see that the commits A and C (marked with -) can be dropped from your topic branch when you rebase it on top of origin/master, while the commit B (marked with +) still needs to be kept so that it will be sent to be applied to origin/master.
The optional <limit> is useful in cases where your topic is based on other work that is not in upstream. Expanding on the previous example, this might look like:
$ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic * 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit [... snip some other commits ...] * cccc111 cherry-pick of C * aaaa111 cherry-pick of A [... snip a lot more that has happened ...] | * cccc000 (topic) commit C | * bbbb000 commit B | * aaaa000 commit A | * 0000fff (base) unpublished stuff F [... snip ...] | * 0000aaa unpublished stuff A |/ o 1234567 merge-base between upstream and topic
By specifying base as the limit, you can avoid listing commits between base and topic:
$ git cherry origin/master topic base - cccc000... commit C + bbbb000... commit B - aaaa000... commit A
Part of the git(1) suite